I Really Need To Take Better Notes
Be forewarned, this will be really fuckin long-winded, but in my opinion, one of the biggest flaws with forums is the abundance of pictures with no data to go with it. I usually try to keep a log of everything I do in google docs, but what good is that if I never access it. I have an endless log of RH% Temps, PPM and a nutrient schedule, but it is not doing me any good with nothing to compare with. By no means am I a professional, but I think even the simplest of hobbyists wants to improve their craft. I do anyway. Simply put, Cannabis has afforded me a new life. Without going into the gory details, I had a very rough decade in my 20's full of violence, addiction, and heartache. At the end of my "glory days" I had a pretty nasty Heroin addiction, and some very serious mental health issues to boot... Not a good mix. On a daily basis, Cannabis finds a way to rejuvenate my soul, sometimes in the most unexpected ways. Perhaps my favorite part of it all is the community. It was incredibly therapeutic just to find out I wasn't alone. To find others that shared the same passion for Cannabis the way I do is priceless. I have come to learn that I am not all that different, and that my line of thinking in where Cannabis is a WONDERFUL gift to all of us, and that doesn't make me a scumbag. We are much more than just a bunch of stoners that like to sit around and get high. Call it what you will, but I always had this "feeling" that cannabis was special. My dad, and quite a large bit of my family were cops so I was always educated on the dangers of smoking Marijuana and using other drugs. I was taught that ambitious people don't smoke weed. I was told that only losers use pot, and if I wanted to be somebody in life I needed to stay off the grass. Something about that stance always felt so wrong to me, I didn't know much, but knew that was dead wrong in the deepest parts of my soul.
Well, I am in my 30's now, and I find myself starting over, but not in a bad way. For the first time in a long time, growing cannabis has literally given back my desire to live a fulfilling life. Of course I have my shitty days, but I cannot remember one night since I started this journey that I haven't been excited to wake up and see whats in store for the day. To me, the daily grind is rewarding, and I don't consider it work, I consider it therapy. That may change somewhere down the road, but for now boy am I having fun. The only way I know how to express my gratitude is to share my experiences and mistakes for others to learn from.
Moving forward I really am not interested to try and re-invent the wheel here. I am a huge tech nerd, and I love my toys, but I try my best to keep it simple and pay attention to what my predecessors are doing, and then just apply it rationally to my scenario, maybe with a tweak or two based on my knowledge in cultivating corals. I will say, having a background in Marine Biology really gave me a jump start. So many principles apply all over to the world of growing cannabis. There is a really fascinating bridge between dosing systems, light technology, and environment monitoring that I have used in my marine applications that I am thinking would translate wonderfully, especially hydro set-ups. I do have to admit though, my TDM meter and similar tools have migrated to the back of my drawer. I really do appreciate the science and precision, but I believe there is something to be said about learning to read the plant. Something about that intimacy with nature that intrigues me much more than a mathematical solution. This method could be total bullshit, its just how I feel. I have the tendency to over-compensate, and fiddle with shit until it's beyond repair. I have the same approach with my saltwater tanks. Only once I stopped trying to be perfect at every reading, did I start to find success. I know from experience that trying to bring ph up, ph down, targeting nutrient availability windows and the like is EXTREMELY stressful. I was losing sight of why I do this in the first place. To chill the fuck out, not work myself into a panic attack because I gave my plant too much bullshit. I think that type of cultivation has its uses, particularly in a laboratory setting. but I think I will leave that to the professionals. I don't sell my medicine, not that I never would, but I do not currently live in cannabis friendly territory. I will be relocating after this lockdown is over. I have a 40 ft 5th wheel trailer and a GMC 3500, and I fully intend on packing my shit up, grabbing the pup, the heading out as soon as this shelter in place is over. Maine? Michigan? The PNW? I am not too sure where, I just know it needs to be a legal state. Thats really the only requirement. Everything else is a bonus after that. Thats the beauty of being single and having no kids...I have some freedom now and I plan to take full advantage of it.. I guess time will tell on that one.
Nutrients
I found success early on with Advanced Nutrients. With that said, I am not a fan of the business model. I haven't really met too many others that do. Why do I need to use 38 different product lines? I think we know the answer to that one. I started with the base 3 part. Then Bud igniter, big bud, bud candy, rhino skin, and sensizym I bought a pretty big supply of it, but nearing the end now... I am not sold on the efficacy of a couple of there products mainly the bud igniter. They make claims to speed up flowering and pistil production along with bud sites, I ran it 3 separate times and never saw even a slight difference. They really get their hooks into you good with the "ph perfect" system. I started to phase into greenleaf nutrients about 2 months ago at the recommendation of a friend. I didnt notice any deficiencies for about 3 weeks and even there, only in the sour diesel which is clearly bigger and more demanding than her sisters. I stopped running the base 3 part and introduced Bud explosion and sweet candy. I did this mainly because I was running enzymes, and I was trying to allow them to do their thing and was trying to avoid an excess. That did happen once when I first started running them for the first time. I would much rather try and correct a deficiency than to try and work backwards due to a nutrient excess. Its so much cheaper, cleaner, and easier to mix. The range of things available in all greenleaf products is notable. I do not have megacrop yet, as of today everything but the big bags are out of stock... The main things in the Megacrop that sold me are the silica, the chitosan oligosaccharide, and supposedly enzymes as well. They claim with the new formulation that I should not need to add a PK boost, but that seems like a bit of a stretch to me For this most recent run, I have been on a pretty stable schedule of watering every other day, the big girls taking a gallon or more water per day, a gram of bud explosion and a gram of sweet candy per gallon with every feeding. Now giving advanced base liquid nutrients at 4ML per liter Tuesdays.
Sorry for the borefest, I just dont have social media anymore, so I dont get to share my thoughts much. I guess this should be a testament to the good work the staff is doing here, because I never really felt comfortable sharing personal stuff like this on a platform like the farm.
